[BostonCard]

I offer this partly for the fans who are more casual, and perhaps unaware of this.

Stanford has an assistant who charts-- by formation, personnel, down and distance, and outcome--every play that it runs in every game.  It does this partly to guard against "playing too much to tendency," the very thing you mention. 

I also am convinced that the "defenses know what is coming" belief that many express here illustrates several cognitive biases to which all of us are prone, in this case creating a bandwagon effect/availability cascade.  One person suspects/believes on thing and voices it, and others who suspect/believe it move from suspicion to certainty. 

We don't run on first down as often as 90% of Stanford fans think, for example, and we pass far less successfully on first down than fans think, too.  Similarly, for several years our yards per play were higher running from the wildcat than from our conventional formations.  But a few short gains from the formation convinced a vocal minority that it was a flawed formation which we should abandon--in large part because it appeared to them that "defenses knew what was was coming." 

We're starting to see the same thinking on red zone fades.  By any measure in football, the play has been very effective.  Our heavy use of it, however, seems to be convincing some fans that defenses see the throw coming and that only miracle catches by AW rescue the play from certain failure.  But it's a bitch wicked play to defend to begin with,  When you have college football's equivalent of Dennis Rodman going up for the contested ball, it's almost unfair.

I did the math not long ago.  We run on first down 2/3 of the time and gain an average of 5.8 yards per carry.  Yes, the number is skewed by a bunch of 50+ Yard Bryce Love runs, but at this point it is a feature of the offense.  We pass the football on about 1/3 of first downs and gain about 5 yap.  Note that the run numbers are slightly inflated because dropbacks that result in a sack count as rushing yards, so they take yards away from rushing and inflate the denominator.

BC

[BostonCard]

I offer this partly for the fans who are more casual, and perhaps unaware of this.

Stanford has an assistant who charts-- by formation, personnel, down and distance, and outcome--every play that it runs in every game.  It does this partly to guard against "playing too much to tendency," the very thing you mention. 

I also am convinced that the "defenses know what is coming" belief that many express here illustrates several cognitive biases to which all of us are prone, in this case creating a bandwagon effect/availability cascade.  One person suspects/believes on thing and voices it, and others who suspect/believe it move from suspicion to certainty. 

We don't run on first down as often as 90% of Stanford fans think, for example, and we pass far less successfully on first down than fans think, too.  Similarly, for several years our yards per play were higher running from the wildcat than from our conventional formations.  But a few short gains from the formation convinced a vocal minority that it was a flawed formation which we should abandon--in large part because it appeared to them that "defenses knew what was was coming." 

We're starting to see the same thinking on red zone fades.  By any measure in football, the play has been very effective.  Our heavy use of it, however, seems to be convincing some fans that defenses see the throw coming and that only miracle catches by AW rescue the play from certain failure.  But it's a bitch wicked play to defend to begin with,  When you have college football's equivalent of Dennis Rodman going up for the contested ball, it's almost unfair.

I did the math not long ago.  We run on first down 2/3 of the time and gain an average of 5.8 yards per carry.  Yes, the number is skewed by a bunch of 50+ Yard Bryce Love runs, but at this point it is a feature of the offense.  We pass the football on about 1/3 of first downs and gain about 5 yap.  Note that the run numbers are slightly inflated because dropbacks that result in a sack count as rushing yards, so they take yards away from rushing and inflate the denominator.

BC